This invention relates to microscopy and more particularly to a transmission ion microscope using a bright light ion source.
The transmission electron microscope (TEM) has been in use for almost fifty years and has atomic or near atomic resolution. A transmission electron microscope sends a focused beam of electrons through a sample and an image is created on a phosphor screen by transmitted electrons so that atomic structure of the sample can be visualized. A TEM is a large, complex and expensive tool utilizing very high energy electrons. The use of very high energy electrons results in an operational burden.
Atomic level surface structure from thick samples can be obtained by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and, to a lesser extent, by atomic force microscopy (AFM). These are slow methods that require mechanically scanning a very fine needle-shaped tip over a sample. These methods cannot, however, provide information on what is below the top atomic layer of the sample.
A detailed understanding of the operation of the aforementioned, presently available TEM and STM microscopes is held by many persons skilled in the art of high resolution microscopes. There are myriad public domain publications, classroom text books, and microscope vendor publications that discuss such prior art microscopes. A commonly available publication provided by a microscope vendor is JEOL News, Vol. 37E, No. 1, 2002. Exemplary text books that teach the above mentioned microscopes include Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Microanalysis by Joseph Goldstein (Editor); Scanning and Electron Microscopy: An Introduction by Stanley L. Flagler, et al.; High Resolution Focused Ion Beams: FIB and Its Applications by John Orloff; Materials Analysis Using A Nuclear Microprobe by Mark B. H. Breese; and Scanning Probe Microscopy and Spectroscopy: Theory, Techniques and Applications by Dawn Bonnell (Editor). The contents of all of these references are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that existing microscopes lack sufficient contrast capability for a fuller understanding of the microscopic world.